SALT LAKE CITY – OCTOBER 21, 2014 – Health systems throughout theUnited States are tackling the daunting challenge of improving quality and reducing cost by redesigning care along service lines and applying evidence-based best practices to key decision points in the care process. But many of these organizations encounter a significant roadblock: the fact that the current system of care delivery doesn’t really operate systematically.

To helphealth systems navigate this situation during the transition to value-based care, Health Catalyst has released a new whitepaper, “The Anatomy of HealthcareDelivery Model: How a Systematic Approach Can Transform Care Delivery.” The white paper introduces aframework that outlines how the healthcare system operates and pinpoints opportunities for improvement. Understanding and following this framework—called the Anatomy of Healthcare Delivery—enables healthcare organizations to reduce variation in clinical and operational processes to drive sustainable, enterprise-wide cost and quality gains.

ThisAnatomy of Healthcare Delivery construct is a culmination of the pioneering work of Dr. David A. Burton, formerly senior vice president of Intermountain Health Care and founding Executive Vice President of Intermountain’s managed care plan now known as SelectHealth. For more than two decades, Dr. Burton helped develop the industry-leading quality improvement strategies that have made Intermountain a recognized national leader in healthcare quality improvement.

“I’venever seen anyone put together such a comprehensive yet succinct summation of healthcare delivery—one that shows where and how we can apply Quality Improvement and Lean principles effectively to improve quality and cost,” said Bryan Bohman, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer at Stanford Hospital & Clinics. “In a single construct, Dr. Burton illustrates how to integrate all the various pathways and decision support systems in a way that gets the most out of the evidence we have. Doing so frees individual physicians to quit worrying about the basic tasks that should be done automatically and allows them instead to focus on aspects of care that can’t be routinized.”

The Anatomyof Healthcare Delivery maps major healthcare processes into common patterns and process flows that can then be used to systematically examine and improve healthcare delivery. It applies evidence-based knowledge assets to key decision points along care delivery streams to illustrate how to better systematize these processes.

“Thismodel is so powerful that we use it at Health Catalyst as the basis for modeling care processes, identifying key decision points to systemize processes and helping our clients develop evidence-based knowledge assets to enable sustainable care improvement,” said Bryan Oshiro, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Health Catalyst. “But it’s important to note, too, that this framework won’t eliminate critical thinking. What it does is provide a standardized, evidence-based approach to care delivery, which will bring all care up to the same high standard.”
Thefree Health Catalyst whitepaper can be downloaded in PDF format here. The Anatomy of Healthcare Deliverymodel graphic itself can also be downloaded in PDF or PowerPoint format.

About Health CatalystHealthCatalyst is a mission-driven data warehousing and analytics company that helps healthcare organizations of all sizes perform the clinical, financial, and operational reporting and analysis needed for population healthandaccountable care.Our provenenterprise data warehouse (EDW) and analytics platform helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs in support of more than 30 million patients for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Faster and more agile than data warehouses from other industries, the Health Catalyst Late-Binding™ EDW has beenheraldedby KLAS as a“newer and more effective way to approach EDW.” For more information, visitwww.healthcatalyst.com, and follow uson Twitter, LinkedInandFacebook.